Acceptability of food is largely determined by its texture, odour, flavour and appearance. These attributes are all vitally important in determining whether or not the consumer will purchase a product, and yet until recently most food producers devoted little effort to quantifying these parameters. Such quantification is necessary if a scientific approach to understanding food systems and then to developing and modifying them is to be adopted. The profile technique enables a trained panel of assessors to quantify the individual sensory attributes which make up a food product. This technique has gained wide acceptance for applications in product development, improving existing products and diagnosing problems in a food product, and also as a tool in quality assurance.